Gretchen Tries Stuff: The one with Whole 30
You Stopped Eating What?!
Back in February, I decided to try Whole 30. This is a popular thing for people to do as a “post-holiday detox” in January, but my birthday is that month so going on a restrictive eating plan wasn’t appealing. Additionally, my reasoning for trying Whole 30 had nothing to do with recovering from an over-indulgent holiday season. Thus I decided to start in February instead! For anyone who isn’t familiar with the popular eating plan, the basic overview is to spend 30 days cutting out the most common “problem” foods: alcohol, sugar, legumes, grains, gluten, and dairy. This pretty much cuts out all processed foods and allows your body to “reset” so that when you reintroduce “problem foods,” you can more easily assess how the food group makes you feel and adjust your eating habits accordingly. When done correctly, there is supposedly no reason to ever repeat the Whole 30 process. (I personally would love some statistics on how many people make long-term lifestyle changes and how many people just use it as a detox.)
Why did I decide to do Whole 30? That’s two-fold:1) I’ve had digestion issues my entire adult life, and though I’ve been tested multiple times for issues such as Celiacs and Ulcerative Colitis (I have neither), we haven’t been able to pinpoint what it is in my diet that just does not agree with my body. An elimination diet with a reintroduction plan is the next step towards figuring out what foods I should be avoiding and what foods I feel good eating. 2) I have ambitious fitness goals and want to find the best way to fuel my body to make my workout routine more impactful for my overall health and fitness.
Basically, I’m tired of food making me feel like crap and need to figure out how to eat to make it stop.
What did I eat, was it hard, and how did it make me feel?
I actually enjoyed the meal planning for this. It allowed me to feel more creative again, and even though I was already pretty good at eating my vegetables, going Whole 30 made me realize how much I relied on grains as fillers. I felt the challenge of cutting out the grains and legumes really helped me recalibrate how much of my meals are vegetable-based. I also found it increased my protein intake and helped me learn what types of protein work best for me. One of my side goals was to use Whole 30 as a jumping-off point to rethink my relationship with carbs and ultimately change the amount and time of day I consume them—and I was pretty successful in this goal. I eat a lot fewer carbs now and keep most of my consumption to the first half of the day. All-in-all, creating Whole 30 meals and sticking to the restrictions wasn’t super difficult for my partner (who was nice enough to go Whole 30 with me) and me.
The first week was the hardest: As my body adjusted to changing its energy source, I found my energy levels weren’t always that high during the first week. The first day in particular, I was a bit foggy, easily distracted, and less energetic during my workouts. I kept to my normal workout schedule throughout the entire 30 days but opted to make adjustments to lower the intensity a bit during the first two weeks (think push-ups on knees instead of regular). The first week I struggled hardcore to eat enough food. It was tough to find time to cook eggs for breakfast. Most days, I got busy with work and either skipped breakfast or lunch or both (yikes!) I also thought I was super craving sugar all during week one, but actually, those cravings came from not eating enough food during the day. During the first week, I didn’t feel much change regarding my dodge digestion system either.
The second week: By the second week, I’d gotten into a much better rhythm and wasn’t skipping meals. However, to ensure I was eating enough food, I had to bend a few rules. You’re allowed to have a Whole 30 approved power bar, but the program recommends that you only have them for emergencies. I started eating an RX Bar at breakfast every day because I found it was the only way to get fuel into my body in the morning. My digestion started feeling better during the second week, but this was definitely a gradual change.
The third week: Once week three hit, eating this way felt normal and easy. My energy levels felt good, and my dodgy digestion system was feeling much less dodgy.
The fourth (and final) week: By our last week of Whole 30, it felt like a lifestyle. It wasn’t difficult, I personally felt great, and issues I’d been dealing with for more than a decade were gone. While I didn’t weigh myself at all during Whole 30 (as the program advises), I did feel lighter, some of my clothes were looser, and my stomach was flatter. After ending Whole 30, I did pop on the scale once, and I was down about 7lbs (whoot whoot!)
Things I missed eating: The food groups I missed the most were legumes and rice, and I think that is because they are both so tasty to eat with Asian, Indian, and Mexican-inspired recipes. I also really missed the act of baking.
The Reintroduction Phase
I had really mixed feelings about reintroduction. On the one hand, I was excited to bring back some of the foods we’d cut out. On the other hand, I was feeling the best I’ve felt in years, and eating anything that could jeopardize that was a bit anxiety-inducing. It was clear that something(s) in my old diet did not agree with my body and discovering what that is is an important part of moving forward with my food choices in a healthy and sustainable way. But knowing I would likely make myself feel like crap during that process was a lot to mentally wrap my head around.
How we planned reintroduction: We followed the “one day off, two days on” method… or at least that was the plan. With this, you reintroduce one of the food groups you cut out for one day and then follow that with two days back on Whole 30 so you can assess how that food made you feel and come back to your base-line before introducing a new food. The order we decided to do this in was: Legumes, non-gluten grains, gluten, and dairy. We didn’t have a specific individual day for reintroducing sugar or alcohol since we both have a pretty good idea of how our bodies respond to those and don’t consume either frequently anyway.
How reintroduction actually went: Day 1 of reintroduction we had black beans with our dinner. The next day I didn’t feel as good as I had been but I wasn’t feeling awful either. Legumes can be a bit rough on your system if you haven’t been eating them consistently so it’s hard to say if legumes are a food I’m sensitive to or if not having them for an extended period of time added to that. After being back Whole 30 for a couple of days I felt better in general. The next thing we reintroduced was nongluten grain—we opted for a bit of rice with dinner. I felt better than when I had the beans but not as good as when I was eating neither. Then things got wonky. Before our gluten reintroduction, I’d accidentally had gluten. (I’d split a beer with someone without thinking about it—oops!) I actually felt fine, so also let myself have a holiday cookie because it was Purim. I seemed “okay” with these smaller amounts of gluten or at least, not any worse than I felt after eating beans or rice.
Then came our official “gluten reintroduction day. We made a full-on pasta dinner on our gluten day. The next morning my partner had a migraine, sinus congestion, and nausea (things he has struggled with for a long time but saw general improvement during Whole 30). I felt the worse I’d felt so far in reintroduction. It wasn’t so bad (yet), but my digestion wasn’t great and my stomach wasn’t feeling awesome. This is when I did something really stupid. My partner really didn’t feel well and wasn’t going to eat the leftover pasta for lunch as we had planned. I didn’t want the pasta to go to waste so decided I’d eat it and push out our Whole 30 days and dairy reintroduction. This was a massive mistake. One day with a gluten-based meal wasn’t great but two in a row destroyed my body. All of the progress I’d made during Whole 30 was gone within 24 hours.
Learnings and next steps
When I said that two gluten-heavy meals in a row destroyed me, I’m not actually too overly dramatic. For days after, I was in actual pain and severe discomfort—can only-wear-my-comfy-clothes level bloated, with the worse of my digestion issues back, and actual stomach pain. It’s the type of level of discomfort that makes eating pasta sound utterly unappetizing. But here’s the thing: I was “ok” with smaller amounts of gluten, and I test negative for Celiacs. So how am I supposed to interpret these findings going forward? I may just be highly sensitive to inflammatory food and need to keep my consumption of these foods more limited—in particular, avoid meals that are mostly gluten-based (pasta, pizza, etc.) and always give myself a solid break from eating gluten if I do indulge in a gluten-heavy meal.
A few other random things I noticed about myself during my Whole 30 journey:
I can’t eat too much meat without it making my body feel off. This is fine as it’s not particularly good for the planet or my wallet to eat meat at every meal or every day. I feel best when at least 50% of my protein comes from eggs (or another non-meat protein source). For me, this means that at least every other dinner, I toss an egg or two on top of my veggies instead of eating meat.
I can’t eat red meat two days in a row. We tried this twice during Whole 30 when we made bun-less hamburgers and ate the leftover the next day. Day 1, the meal was delicious, and I felt fine. Day 2? The meal was still delicious, but my body was not happy afterward.
I also feel best when two-thirds of my plate is covered in vegetables. I have better energy, digestion, and honestly just feel good the day after a meal that is about a handful of protein on a large bed of veggies with little to no gluten-free grain.
I have zero issues eating dairy!
When giving up sweets and alcohol, I’d much rather opt to drink a cup of hot chocolate (with oat milk) than a glass of wine. Don’t get me wrong. I still enjoy a nice glass of wine. But if I had to pick between them, I get more enjoyment from the hot chocolate. This is very surprising because being a hot chocolate drinker is a fairly new thing for me. It’s something I never really did much until I discovered Oatly back in 2019.
Unlike other people, going Whole 30 did nothing to improve my skin/acne or my psoriasis. Some people have experienced an improvement in autoimmune-related issues when cutting out inflammatories, but I saw zero impact on my autoimmune symptoms. Cutting added sugar also had no impact on my breakouts.
So now what???? I’m actually going to switch back to eating Whole 30 for the next two-three weeks to get my body back to baseline. I haven’t been following the “diet” strictly for more than a day here and there since reintroduction. While I don’t feel as terrible as I did post-pasta, I’m still not feeling anywhere near “good” either. My body is basically back to where it was pre-Whole 30, and that is not something I’m ok with. The only exception I’m going to be making for this round is yogurt—I had no adverse reaction to dairy, and yogurt is full of probiotics that are great for your gut health. Once my body is feeling good again, I’ll start working in small quantities of legumes, non-gluten grains, and eventually even gluten. With some cautious experimenting, I think I can find a gluten level that I can handle. Everything in moderation.
Wish me luck!